How To Cheat On The Person You Love

Let it be Winter. Let it be achingly cold in the dead of Winter. It is important to have regrets, for there is depth to regret, for there is retribution, for there is always something to be learned, mostly importantly and only, about yourself. What your regret shall be is of your own choosing; let this one be cheating.

Let him be the antithesis to everything you love. You will not find it in yourself to love him, and that is why you are drawn to him. His hair is a dirty blonde, his eyes a sullen blue. Above you he does not tower but hovers. This event is not a sudden occurrence, it is not a happenstance. You have planned this meticulously in the manner in which the psychopath plans his murder. It will be brutal and you will be under the delusive impression that you can get away with, unscathed. There will be no traces, no blood. There will be no one to call you. No one should know.

Let your dress be blue, or a color you believe best reflects who you are, not who you think you are, but who you really are. Do not wear white and do not wear black as these are not colors. This is not about innocence or death, at least, not for now. Your color will be navy blue, midnight blue, that blue which is closest to the night. Tights will be sheer, of the faintest black, so that your legs are in agony from the cold and he will think of your bare legs wrapped around his waist, over his shoulders, pressing against your chest under his weight.

Let the evening proceed as all evenings proceed: a hot beverage, as though you are fond friends and not strangers, in a space so public and devoid of obvious sensuality. Like the psychopath that you are, you arrange this so that you are the only immediate object of sensuality. Men of a certain age, at times, like to be reminded of a sweetheart from childhood. Indiscretions are so cliché, as will be this one. Be distant in proximity but not in speech — absence makes the heart grow hungry.
Let your youth be your marketable quality. Be sure that your dark circles are concealed, that your cheeks are in a permanent state of flushed and your hemline is not too short. Think sweetheart. Now is the time to exhibit all those childish aspects of yourself that you loathe, the perpetual giggling and the larger than life smile, high-pitched frequencies and concerted tripping over.

Allow him to touch you with his cold hands at erogenous zones — the tips of your fingers, your shoulders — but only a quick touch.

Let him take you home, his home. Move you hand along each spine of each book as he frets over what music to play, there is, after all, nothing else to do here. Decline beer and ask for water, you must stay lucid. He will undress you, he will be on top of you while you lay on your back. This is not about sex; this is about you, it is the resentment you feel toward yourself, like a despicable cancer spreading through your body, like a disease that must now be put to its death.

Feel nothing. Gather yourself and feel nothing. Leave quietly, though everyone is still awake and he knows that you are leaving, down the elevator, through the lobby, the upward climb, the train ride home, your home and feel nothing. If you tell him, he will call you a whore and you will shout, “But who am I to you?” If you tell him, he will say nothing because who are you to him, and you will have to ask yourself the question you have been so afraid of, “But who am I to you?”
Tell him nothing, you are both dying anyway. You love him too much, but you are a psychopath, incapable of rational being, and either way you, you are going to lose him. Take a shower. Try to wash off the disdain you have for yourself with searing hot water, furiously. Try to wash it off for years. Take only scalding hot showers, for years.